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56 love thing I adore my poetry teacher I announced to my mother upon my return to America and my subsequent enrollment in a poetry class I’m sure it’s not love it’s your language thing she replied, perhaps horrified that I had made a hero out of a Kentucky drunk I always knew it she said months later after I declared my admiration for Malcolm X and Spike Lee you have a Black thing your mom is wrong the skinny kid from southern Illinois told me a year later you don’t have a Black thing you have a hick thing it’s a layover from your Kentucky-poetry-teacher-thing my mother said about the skinny kid from southern Illinois 57 I hope this is a temporary thing she gasped when I told her I was quitting school to paint houses my Armenian friend laughed when I told her about the painter with the smiling eyes who had inspired my career change you do have a hick thing; it’s part of your blue-collar-idealistic thing maybe that’s why I am so happy with this man who has dancing eyes and no country and made his living driving a taxi in New York City ...

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